Kitabı oku: «The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XXIV

Old Peter Leveret and Haidee, his wife, after much bickering and mutual recriminations, attended by more or less pummelling and hair pulling, had at last made an amicable adjustment of their difficulty regarding Mrs. Vance's secret.

Old Haidee, termagant and spit-fire though she was, found herself no match for the eternal reproaches and brutal usage of her thoroughly enraged husband, and eventually confessed herself the weaker vessel by yielding to the pressure of a stronger conjugal power and revealing the secret of her influence over Mrs. Vance, at the same time dividing her ill-gotten spoils with the incensed old ruffian.

It is needless to say that old Peter's greedy soul was not content with these ill-gotten gains. He felt that the beautiful widow had not paid, so far, a tithe of what was due to himself and Haidee as the fortunate possessors of so fatal a secret.

"I tell you, Haidee," said he, "the woman has got to come down heavily with the money, or I shall sell her secret to somebody who will pay a better price for it—perhaps to Mr. Lawrence or that young Darling."

"Yes, and get yourself into a fatal difficulty," retorted the wife contemptuously. "Let me tell you, Peter Leveret, you have more brute strength than I have, but all the sense we own between us is in the head that rests on my shoulders. Suppose you try to sell this secret to Lawrence or Darling, where is your evidence against Mrs. Vance? Did you see her commit the murder? Did I see her commit it? Did Doctor Pratt see her either? No; to all of these questions you have nothing to urge in support of your assertion except the bare suspicion of Doctor Pratt. And if you brought forward his name and got him into difficulty, why, he knows enough evil of us both to send us to the gallows to-morrow. Ah! that word frightens you, does it? Well, Doctor Pratt would do it willingly if we got him into trouble. So I say to you be content with what we can wring out of the woman's fears, and let all else alone. She will prove a mine of wealth to us as long as we can make her believe that there was an actual eye-witness to her crime."

"Well, perhaps you are right, old woman," said Peter, dimly comprehending the indubitable force of her statements. "You were always more cautious than I was, Haidee. Now, don't understand me to imply that you have more sense than I have, for I don't admit it at all. I am more hasty than you, that is all. But I say, as I said before, Mrs. Vance has got to plank the money down more freely."

"But I have told you she has nothing of her own, stupid!" retorted Haidee, impatiently. "She is dependent on Mr. Lawrence for every penny she gets. We must be satisfied with our small gains now, and wait until she gets the rich husband she is angling for. Then we shall reap our golden harvest."

"Aye, aye; but, Haidee, write to the lady and tell her to come here to-morrow and bring all the gold she can lay her hands upon," said Peter with dogged persistency.

"So soon?" said Haidee, hesitatingly. Her greed was as great as her husband's; but she had a fair modicum of caution and common sense. "It is but a little while since she gave me the jewels, old man."

"No matter. Write to her again, I say, or it will be the worse for you," scowled Peter, wrinkling up his heavy brows ferociously.

Accordingly, the note to Mrs. Vance was written and dispatched, and the pair of plotters awaited her coming impatiently. But they little anticipated what fatal results to themselves would follow that imperative summons.

That letter awoke in Mrs. Vance a burning desire to be rid of the old couple, whose constant demands for money she would soon be entirely unable to meet.

She had a hundred dollars in gold that Mr. Lawrence had kindly presented to her that morning, with a jesting reference to a "new fall suit."

Her wardrobe needed no replenishing, and she could spare this sum to the rapacity of the old people; but she felt that no sooner would this be yielded to their greed than they would demand more.

And where was the next hush-money to come from? It was not probable that the banker would give her any more money before Christmas, and she could not ask him for more than what his own generosity bestowed on her.

She had no claim upon his beneficence whatever. These two old harpies would be down upon her a dozen times before she would have another penny to give them.

And as soon as they learned her inability to bribe them further, they would carry their fatal secret to Lancelot Darling or Mr. Lawrence.

Mrs. Vance looked these difficulties in the face fairly, and could see but one way out of them. The hideous old witch, and her still more hideous old mate, must die.

Must die! No thrill of compunction or pity touched her heart as she made this fatal avowal to herself. On the contrary, she experienced a feeling of relief at the thought, mingled with a longing to consummate the deed quickly that she might taste the sweetness of revenge.

They must die. But how?

Her fertile brain could suggest no feasible plan for the execution of the dreadful deed she was determined upon. All through that night she tossed on a sleepless pillow, revolving various schemes in her excited mind. Morning found her haggard and pale, and all her paints and cosmetics could not conceal her wretchedly ill appearance. She would not present that agitated mien at the breakfast table, and had her morning repast sent up to her room on the plea of a severe headache.

At noon she dressed herself in a plain, dark walking dress, wrapped a double veil about her head and face, and set forth upon her errand. She walked some distance, carefully selecting the most secluded streets, and shunning observation. At length she went into a small apothecary shop and purchased from an inexperienced boy-clerk some strychnine which she said she wanted for the purpose of destroying rats. She paid for it, tucked the small parcel inside the palm of her dark kid glove, and walked on steadily to her destination.

Old Peter and his wife had just sat down to their frugal dinner when her quick rap sounded on the hall door. They looked at each other apprehensively.

"It is she, no doubt," said he in a moment. "So the jade is come at last."

He had been swearing all the morning at her tardiness.

Haidee got up and went to the door, unlocked it, admitted the visitor, and turned the key again.

"You see I keep my engagements punctually," said Mrs. Vance, pleasantly, as she tripped in, "although I barely expected to be called on so soon."

The hostess only grunted in reply to this as she ushered the visitor into the low-ceiled, bare-looking room, where old Peter sat blowing his cup of hot tea.

He looked up and gave the new-comer a gruff nod.

Mrs. Vance stood still a moment taking in all her surroundings with a comprehensive glance, then she took the chair Haidee offered her, and placing it in a position to suit herself she sat down.

She had seated herself sidewise from the table, but in close proximity to that corner of it on which sat the old brown tea-pot from whose cracked nozzle issued the fragrant steam of the hot tea. By raising her hand she could have poured out a cup of the refreshing beverage for herself, but she smilingly declined the grim offer of the table's hospitalities that was made by the hostess.

"I thank you, I do not wish for a morsel of food, but I shall be glad of a glass of a fresh, cold water. I have walked the whole distance and am very tired and thirsty."

Haidee arose, and taking a small white pitcher from the cupboard in the corner, went out to the well.

At the same moment old Peter arose, and taking his plate in hand, hobbled to the stove for a portion of the mutton-chop that had been left in the frying-pan for warmth.

In that moment Mrs. Vance saw her opportunity. Her hand fluttered over the lid of the tea-pot and raised it noiselessly, while a quantity of white powder was poured from her other hand into the smoking-hot beverage. It was but the work of a moment. When the host hobbled back to his place she was leaning back in her chair, her hands folded over her lap, and a look of bland unconsciousness on her handsome face. Her nerves seemed steeled against emotion.

Old Haidee entered and pouring a glass of water, offered it in silence. She took it and drained it thirstily with profuse thanks.

"Have you brought us any money?" asked old Peter, sharply, looking up from his voracious feeding.

"What if I have not?" she retorted, jestingly.

"Then it will be the worse for you, my fine lady," he answered, threateningly.

Old Haidee had resumed her place at the head of the table.

"Pray go on with your dinner," said the visitor, in a patronising tone.

The old woman poured a fresh cup of tea for her husband, diluted it plenteously with milk and coarse brown sugar, then replenished her own cup. At the moment when the old man was greedily gulping his portion down, Mrs. Vance put her hand into her pocket and drew out a netted purse of shining gold coin.

"Here is a hundred dollars I was fortunate enough to get for you," said she, handing it reluctantly over to the woman; "and you must understand that I cannot possibly get another penny for you before Christmas; so try and economize it the best you can."

Haidee gulped her tea down hurriedly as she clutched the purse, and the old man hurried around to his wife's side.

"Divide fair is my motto," said he. "Give me the purse, Haidee, and I will count it for you."

"No, you don't, old man," she answered, resolutely holding on to it while her husband's fingers worked eagerly. "I will count it myself! Not a coin will I ever see again if I trust this purse in your itching fingers!"

She poured out the shining mass upon the table and began to count it over carefully, but the sight of it was too much for the grasping soul of the old miser looking on. He thrust out his open claw-like fingers and hastily gathered the whole pile into his greedy clutch, except for one or two coins which escaped and rolled down upon the floor.

In an instant his wife sprang up and bounded upon him like a wild-cat.

There ensued a furious battle that defied description. Mrs. Vance retreated hurriedly to the door, and stood at a safe distance watching the couple as they fought over the gold that was clutched in Peter's fingers, placing him somewhat at a disadvantage, for Haidee, with both hands at liberty, pulled, and tore, and bit with the ferocity of a wild animal.

At length old Peter's tight grasp relaxed, the treasured gold fell from his grasp and rolled here and there upon the floor.

Haidee felt him writhing in her clasp and loosened the hold she had upon his throat, and suffered him to fall upon the floor.

He lay there, rolling and tossing, and uttering hideous groans, while dreadful contortions passed over his features.

"You have killed your husband, woman! Look at his throat, purple from the clasp of your hands!" cried Mrs. Vance from the doorway, laughing aloud at the shocked, incredulous stare of the woman as she gazed at her writhing husband.

At that moment the suffering man gave a furious plunge, rose to a sitting posture, gave a hideous rattle from his throat, and fell backward with a dull thud on the bare floor. He was dead!

Old Haidee stooped over the still form like one dazed.

"Is he really dead?" she said in wonder, feeling that it could not be true. "Have I actually killed my old man?"

"Yes, you have killed him," answered Mrs. Vance, with a fiendish laugh. "Ha, ha, old woman, what is your fatal secret worth now? You, too, are a murderess!"

Old Haidee stood still for a moment, utterly stunned and bewildered by the suddenness of the blow that had fallen upon her. But as she gazed at the triumphant face of her enemy, her dazed senses seemed to clear and a perception of the truth rushed upon her.

"You lie!" she shrieked, in a voice of horrible rage and despair. "Devil, you have poisoned him, and me, too; I see it all now! You sent me out for the water while you drugged the tea! But I will have my revenge before I die!"

With a dreadful oath she sprang forward. The affrighted woman retreated before her, but old Haidee was too quick for her. In a moment her strong, claw-like fingers were fastened about the fair neck of the beautiful woman. In another moment her sinful soul would have been sent forth to its dread account with Heaven; but before that critical instant arrived, the old witch fell backward on the hard floor, writhing in the agonies that had destroyed her husband.

The widow stepped a few paces back out of reach of her victim, and stood regarding her with a smile of wicked triumph, while the witch, amid her dying groans, hurled the most awful maledictions upon her destroyer.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Mrs. Vance, enjoying her revenge to the utmost limit; "did you think you could play with fire and not be burned? Did you think I would destroy a beautiful and valued life like that of Lily Lawrence, yet suffer two worn-out old hulks to stand between me and my cherished purpose? Ha, ha! you realize your folly, now!"

Her words fell on deaf ears. Old Haidee had expired in horrible agonies, while the jeers and taunts of her destroyer yet echoed in her hearing. She lay inside the door-way where she had fallen, a hideous spectacle of death.

Mrs. Vance lifted her foot and spurned the still body with all the intensity of the hate that burned in her heart.

"They are both dead," she said, aloud. "My evil genius has helped me. I am safe now."

She stepped across old Haidee's body with a slight thrill of repulsion, and entering the room, picked up her purse and began to collect the scattered gold coins.

"I may as well have my money again," she thought to herself. "I need not be in a hurry to get away. No one ever comes here, I am sure."

She placed the last coin in the purse and paused to look around her. Old Peter's ghastly dead face met her view. The wicked eyes, wide open and staring, seemed to threaten her as in life. A shiver of deadly fear thrilled along her veins, seeming to freeze them.

"Great God!" she exclaimed. "What if my sins should find me out!"

She lifted her slender, white hands and regarded them fixedly.

"There is blood upon my hands," she said with an irrepressible shudder. "They look fair and white, but they have sent three human souls into the presence of their Creator. Pshaw! why do I pause to reflect here? Let me cover up the traces of my crime and go."

She took up the shovel, and opening the door of the stove, pulled out a quantity of blazing fire-brands and scattered them recklessly upon the bare floor, tossing one so close to the body of old Peter that his shock of red hair was ignited and burned with a disagreeable stench.

Mrs. Vance turned away with such a laugh as a fiend might have loved to hear, and hurried from the house, leaving the door, which she hastily unlocked, partly ajar.

"It does not matter," she thought to herself. "No one will discover them. The old shell of a house will ignite from the brands directly and burn down to the ground."

Drawing her veil tightly over her face she hurried away over the lonely road. About half a mile from the old house she met a man riding on horseback towards the route she was leaving. He scrutinized the solitary woman keenly, but could make nothing of her thickly shrouded features, and rode onward.

"Some wayfarer," she thought carelessly, and hurried on, eager to leave the hated vicinity of her double crime.

CHAPTER XXV

Mr. Shelton's first impulse, after his interesting interview with Mrs. Mason, had been to rush into town, secure a squad of police, and make an immediate raid upon the house of which he had heard such suspicious tales.

Had he obeyed this hasty prompting of his mind, all would have gone well, and this story of mine might have been concluded in a very few more chapters.

But the famous detective in his eventful career had usually found it advantageous to think twice before he acted.

He did so in this case, and his second thought resulted briefly in this: He did not consider that he had as yet sufficient to warrant him in taking the step he at first proposed to himself.

He had no actual grounds for suspicion except the fact that Doctor Pratt and Harold Colville had entered the house, and remained there a seemingly rather long time for a professional call from a busy physician whose time was limited.

Mrs. Mason's information was all gained from the oftentimes worthless gossip of a country neighborhood, and could scarcely be depended on as reliable evidence. The mysterious case of the young girl who had been befriended by the worthy woman might have no connection with the old house and its inhabitants as he had hastily concluded at first.

Considering all the circumstances, the cautious detective determined to wait before taking any decided step, and in the meantime to learn more of the mysterious house if possible.

His pursuit of Pratt and Colville in the next few days took him in entirely different directions, but resulted in nothing satisfactory.

In the meantime Mrs. Mason's gossip about the old house and its wicked inhabitants haunted him persistently. He could not rid himself of the thought. It abode with him by day, and in his sleep assumed the guise of night-mare. The old house actually preyed upon him. After a few days of this troubled thinking he came to a firm determination.

"I will go out there and make some plausible excuse for entering, if I can possibly do so," he said, to himself, "and once inside, I will try to find out whether there is ready ground for suspicion and inquiry."

His mind was relieved when he had resolved upon his course. Accordingly, he mounted his black horse and set out that very evening on his quest. He felt disappointed when he passed the tiny cottage of Mrs. Mason and saw the door closed. He missed the pleasant face from the doorway, but the evening was quite cool, and the good soul was, no doubt, knitting inside by her lonely hearthstone.

Within half a mile of his destination he encountered a lady walking rapidly in the dusty road. She was graceful in figure, fashionable in dress, but her thickly-veiled face gave no hint of her identity. The detective looked after her with no little curiosity.

"That is not the sort of woman one expects to see walking alone in this vicinity," he thought. "She has the proud air and step of a fashionable New York lady. And she does not wish to be recognized, else why that thick veil?"

He turned in the saddle and looked after her again. The tall figure of the graceful lady was rapidly receding from sight around the bend in the road.

"Some intrigue is on foot," he laughed to himself, as he rode on. "These fashionable ladies sometimes find time hanging heavy on their hands, and—well, 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.'"

Thus soliloquizing, he found himself in front of the old house which had lately occupied so many of his leisure moments of thought.

He dismounted, fastened his horse, and laid his hand on the heavy gate, peering cautiously inside before entering, being mindful of Mrs. Mason's report of the bloodhound.

"The hound is probably chained up," he thought, after a careful reconnoissance. "Of course they would not allow such a dangerous beast to run at large in the daytime. Now, I must bethink me of my excuse, for I am about to storm the castle of the formidable ogres."

He advanced up the path to the door which, greatly to his surprise, stood slightly ajar.

"I should have thought these reputed misers would keep a locked door to their house," he said to himself, with unconscious disappointment. "I dare say they will prove to be quite ordinary people after all."

He proceeded to rap lightly on the door, then waited a little for a response from within.

No one came to answer his knock. He repeated it once or twice loudly with a like result.

"Are they all dead or asleep, or gone away?" said he, jestingly to himself, as he pushed the door boldly open and looked into the hall.

He saw nothing in the hall but a thin, blue volume of smoke that was pouring out of an open doorway on the right. With a bound he sprang inside and looked into the room.

A horrible sight met his startled eyes as soon as they became accustomed to the cloud of smoke that slowly rose over every thing.

Inside the doorway, at his feet, lay the dead body of an old woman, her aged features distorted and drawn as if by her dying agonies. Near the stove lay another horrible corpse, that of an old and deformed man.

The flooring in front of the stove had become ignited from the brands scattered over it, and was slowly burning through. The clothing of the man had caught fire and every shred was burned off of him, while his charred and frying flesh sent forth a sickening smell. The table with its unfinished repast stood in the center of the room. Several dishes had been knocked off in the furious fight of the old couple, and lay shattered in fragments on the floor. Chairs were overturned and gave silent evidence of the struggle that had gone on so lately in the now silent and deserted room. The detective stood as if rooted to the spot in a trance of horror.

He roused himself at last as he saw what headway the flames were making, like one starting from a dreadful dream.

"Heavens!" he cried out, "this is terrible. Murder and arson have both been committed here!"

He looked about him. Two buckets of water stood on a rude plank shelf. He took them down and poured the water over the burning body of the man, then dashed out into the yard where he remembered he had seen a well as he came in.

He filled the two buckets, carried them in, and poured the contents over the fire. Again and again he repeated this operation till the smoldering fire was quite extinguished, and he stood, weary and perspiring, looking at the dismal scene.

"Well, what next?" he asked himself. "I suppose I ought to go into town and bring the coroner; but first I believe I will explore this horrible den. What if the body I have sought so long should lie hidden in this dreadful lazar house."

He went out into the hall and looked down its narrow length. Three doorways opened into as many rooms. The handles yielded to his touch, and the door of each swung open readily, but the rooms were empty, dark and cobwebbed.

Dust lay thick upon the floor, showing that they had long been untenanted. With a sigh of disappointment he closed them again, and stood contemplating the stairway.

"Better luck in the upper regions, perhaps," he thought. "I wonder if I dare venture up there? Surely I can encounter nothing more fearful than I have seen below."

Slowly, and with some apprehension, he mounted the stairs, not knowing what to expect, and thinking it possible that he might encounter some further dreadful spectacle.

At the top of the stairs he found himself in a narrow passage-way on which three doors opened. He advanced to the first door and tried it.

It yielded easily to his touch, and swung open. He entered and looked about him.

There was nothing suspicious here. It was evidently the sleeping apartment of the two dead people below who would never need it more.

A bed and two chairs constituted the sole furnishing. Some cheap articles of feminine apparel hung upon pegs against the wall, together with one or two rusty old coats and a pair of pants that doubtless belonged to the man he had seen below.

"There is nothing hidden here," thought Mr. Shelton, leaving it and entering the next room.

This room was similar to the first one. A bed and several chairs were all it contained. A single article of feminine apparel hung against the wall.

It was a dress of summer blue, and made in a more fashionable style than the one which he had seen in the adjoining room.

Like a flash he remembered that Mrs. Mason had told him, when describing the appearance of the girl she had befriended, that she wore a "morning dress of a light-blue color, and fashionably made."

"Great Heavens!" he thought, "is it possible that the poor creature escaped from this very house? If so, then she was recaptured and brought back, for here hangs the dress that Mrs. Mason described. My God! what has become of the wearer! Has some fearful fate befallen her?"

Echo only answered him as he sat down trembling with excitement.

He was here in the room where sweet Lily Lawrence had dragged out weary months of captivity, sickness and sorrow; where her pure cheeks had burned at insult and wrong, where she had suffered the pangs of hunger and cold until her weakened frame had almost succumbed to the grim destroyer, death.

But it was silent and deserted now. The dead ashes strewed the hearth, the empty robe hung against the wall, and the cold October wind sighing past the iron-barred window did not whisper of the tender heart that had ached so drearily within.

"This has been a prison for some poor soul," Mr. Shelton said aloud as he noticed the iron bars that guarded the window.

He went out shuddering as if with cold, and advanced to the next room.

The door was locked, but the key had been left upon the outside.

He turned it hastily and stepped over the threshold, half-expecting to find some poor creature incarcerated within.

But silence and gloom greeted him here also.

The room was bare and dreary as the ones he had quitted. A bed and a chair comprised its furniture, and heavy bars of iron secured the solitary window.

"What a horrible prison house," he exclaimed. "And what dreadful deeds of darkness have perhaps been committed within these old walls."

He went to the window and peered out through the heavy bars at the tangled garden. It was faded and dying now, and the russet leaves of autumn strewed the deserted paths.

"My God, what was that?" he exclaimed with a violent start.

A strange sound had grated upon his ears—the distinct clank of a heavy chain and the smothered moan of a human voice.

Involuntarily he looked downward and saw a trap-door in the middle of the room.

"Now some new discovery of human misery," thought the detective as he advanced and pushed the sliding door backward.

A dark and narrow stairway was disclosed. He descended it quickly and entered the empty room beyond.

A feeling of disappointment struck him as he entered the deserted, cobwebbed dungeon, but guided by the sound of faint, low moans he advanced across the floor and opened the opposite door to the one by which he had entered.

Here he paused and swept his hand across his brow, as though to dispel a mist that had risen before his shrinking vision.

There before his eyes, extended on her low cot bed, with the horrible strap and chain about her waist fastened to the iron staple in the floor, with her hungry black eyes glaring on him from her skeleton face, lay poor Fanny Colville in all her abject wretchedness.

"My God!" exclaimed Mr. Shelton, "horrors upon horrors accumulate!"